


face the music

by chronology, horchata, sumaru



Series: team oikage two seventeen [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A Lot Of Violins, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - Orchestra, Confessions, Getting The D (Major), Have You Ever Seen So Much Musical Shitposting In Your Entire Life, Illustrated, M/M, Music, Orchestra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 18:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12195564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronology/pseuds/chronology, https://archiveofourown.org/users/horchata/pseuds/horchata, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumaru/pseuds/sumaru
Summary: “So, you have to mentor an underclassman?” Iwaizumi asks.“Yeah, and get this — it’sTobio. Tobio!”Oikawa feels exactly three different feelings when violin prodigy Kageyama is assigned to him in his graduating year of the conducting program: incredible amounts of salt, alight with challenge, and deeply, horrifyingly gay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written by: [chronology](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chronology), [horchata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/horchata), [sumaru](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sumaru)  
> Art by: [hachi](http://hachibani.tumblr.com/), [ikandingin](https://twitter.com/ikankulkas), [eris](https://twitter.com/dormina)  
> With help from: [kiyala](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala), [chiharu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chiharu)
> 
> (oikawa voice) HIS FINGERING TECHNIQUE IS SO GOOD I KNOW IT I KNOW IT’S GOOD OH GOD MY HEART HURTS
> 
> A [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uPLKMvgCgv4ML_QYWhdMZSjERIINxVX) to accompany you.
> 
> This was created for the Sports Anime Shipping Olympics (prompt: idioms) for the second main round. _Face the music_ is probably the easiest and most obvious idiom. Less obvious but just as important: _keys to the kingdom_ , for unlocking Mahler’s beautiful half-step from the key of c# minor to, finally, a triumphant D Major.
> 
> (Please note that Chapter 1 is the work in its original form with all the art; Chapter 2 is the text only for those who prefer to read it that way.)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

 

 

_Show me how to love you, Kageyama Tobio._

_Convince me._

_Start from the beginning._

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So, you have to mentor an underclassman?” Iwaizumi asks.

“Yeah, and get this — it’s _Tobio_. Tobio!”

It’s spring in Tokyo. The weather is crisp and Ueno Park is as beautiful as ever. Oikawa would’ve made time to enjoy the scenery, if he weren’t in such a terrible predicament.

“T — You mean Kageyama Tobio, that kid from all the youth competitions?” Iwaizumi looks at him. “Your ‘prodigy violinist,’ or whatever?”

“My entire week's been ruined since I got this assignment,” Oikawa sighs. “You haven’t dealt with him much here since you’re not in conducting, so you’ll never understand why this is so awful.”

“Lay off the kid, he can’t be that bad. He beat you a long time ago. How have you cared for ten years?”

“First, Iwa-chan, the wounds have healed but the scars remain. Second, have you _seen_ him? It’s ridiculous,” Oikawa says before leaning back in the grass. “Those big eyes of his, and the way his fingers rock back and forth in his vibrato, and his smooth bowing, and—”

“Stop,” Iwaizumi cuts in. “Are you hearing yourself? You’re infatuated.”

Oikawa gapes, then squawks, “I am _not!_ ”

Iwaizumi looks over Oikawa's shoulder and stands, hand raised to signal to someone behind. He grabs his things. “Could’ve fooled me,” he says. “Play nice.”

In the ten years of this not-a-grudge, Kageyama Tobio hasn’t changed much. He is maybe a few inches taller, Oikawa notes, as he sees Kageyama walking down the path toward where Oikawa sits. Always in blues and blacks, always a little hunched in on himself, pinched like a cardboard box that someone accidentally sat on.

But, how unusual: today he is flanked by two louder, shorter people whose laughter pierces the air.

Oikawa can tell when Kageyama sees him, because his whole body freezes just a moment, before his shoulders go stiff and his feet change direction. The shrimp with orange hair carrying a trumpet case jumps in front of Kageyama. Kageyama pushes him away with a hand on his face.

Ugh, Iwa-chan is very wrong. Kageyama is horrible.

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa calls, as Kageyama approaches. “You have friends?”

Kageyama frowns. “We’re supposed to meet in the practice room across campus in two minutes.”

“Good thing I waited out here. You’re late.”

“Then so are you, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says. He sits down and takes a journal out of his bag. As Kageyama flips the pages, Oikawa can see it is full, absolutely full of near-incomprehensible performance notes. “They’re in Karasuno.”

“The jazz ensemble?” Oikawa confirms. “Don’t tell me you’re considering Ellington.”

“No,” Kageyama finds his page and Oikawa’s glad he doesn’t hand it over, because there’s no hope he’d be able to read it. “I was thinking Tchaikovsky’s ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ It would demonstrate a challenge with its syncopated rhythms.”

Oikawa flicks his fingers as though he’s brushing away an invisible insect. “Everyone would be put to sleep in the first minute.”

“Part of Stravinsky’s ‘Soldier’s Tale.’ The section with the Royal March—”

“Will you borrow your trumpeter from Karasuno for the solo?”

Kageyama’s frown deepens. “Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade,’” he counters. “It’s impressive, well-known. The second movement has—”

Oikawa sours. “Ushiwaka did it last year.”

“Debussy’s ‘La Mer.’ It’s beautiful.”

“I should say so. _I'm_ doing that one the following night.”

Kageyama looks as if Oikawa has eaten a forkful of his birthday cake. “Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie fantastique,’ the third or fourth movement.”

“A lover’s doubt and a poisoning, how appropriate for your public debut, Tobio-chan.”

“‘Songs of a Wayfarer,’” Kageyama offers.

Oikawa boils, annoyed. This _brat_ has the nerve to suggest Mahler? Kageyama thinks so _highly_ of himself. All these pieces are infamous, challenging, and would make for incredibly difficult work. Each would be a triumph to conduct.

_But what if he can?_

All of a sudden, he can feel those ten years unwind slow and terrible in his gut, and Oikawa hates him all over again.

“Well, if you’re suggesting _Mahler_ , we might as well jump straight to something compelling. I’ve decided: you’ll conduct Mahler’s fifth.”

Kageyama’s eyes go wide.

“The adagietto,” Oikawa continues, standing. “I’m sure you’re familiar.”

“Yes, but—”

“Ah, ah! It’s an appropriate length if you don’t drag it out. And an excellent key, C-sharp.”

“D Major,” Kageyama says, on his feet.

Oikawa feels his smile freeze to ice. “You won’t talk me out of this one, Tobio-chan.” Oh, no. He certainly won’t.

Maybe Kageyama thought he could use knowledge and talent to muscle his way through Tchaikovsky, but Mahler’s fifth is — the adagietto is one of the most famous romantic pieces in the modern canon. Kageyama can’t possibly evoke the kind of deep, peaceful, sweeping surety of a fathomless, hopeful emotion. Kageyama can’t even say goodbye to his new friend without shoving him in the face.

What little does Kageyama know of love? Oikawa doubts he’ll see.

“It’s in the score library. We’ll meet again in one week and you’ll know it well enough to run it through, or I will find a way to walk. You can e-mail me any questions, but,” he turns away to walk back to the rehearsal hall, “don’t.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kageyama ‘goody-two-shoes’ Tobio is early again to their third mentoring session, bowing the swell of the middle section of the adagietto on his violin. For being so oblivious to everything else, Kageyama treats his instrument with fastidious care, his long manicured fingers flitting across the strings as if he was born with the neck in his hands.

Oikawa’s lips purse. Annoying.

“Decided to sit with the orchestra instead, Tobio-chan?”

“Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says, turning in his chair. He looks… awkwardly open, like someone caught on the threshold of a sneeze. Seeing the expression on Oikawa’s face, he shuts his mouth instead. “Hello.”

“Stand,” Oikawa says, tone carefully bored, gesturing to the small podium in the room.

Kageyama’s eyes narrow. He stands to set his violin down carefully in its case behind the music stand, settling himself and his baton behind the podium facing the room’s mirror wall.

“Loosen up, Tobio-chan.” Oikawa settles in the chair behind Kageyama, so they can both watch him practice in the long mirror of the room. “This isn’t a funeral, that’s the first movement.”

“I know, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says. He carefully avoids Oikawa’s eyes in the mirror. Oikawa gives him a moment. There’s plenty to look at in the mirror that’s not Kageyama. Oikawa finds himself minorly impressed with the messy notes Kageyama wrote with dry erase marker on the smudged glass. Kageyama must have been here since the building opened early this morning.

"Remember," Oikawa instructs, "most people will know this one. It will feel familiar. They will know it has to do with romance, with two people being beautiful together. Well. You in particular have a long way to go."

Oikawa watches Kageyama take a moment to ignore him. “I’ve done my research,” Kageyama says, and Oikawa knows he’s telling the truth. The paper folded in with Kageyama’s CD lists many famous conductors in order with lengths of time — Dudamel, Bernstein, Kubelik, Ozawa. Kageyama clicks the CD player in the room along to track 9 (Oikawa notes it is the shortest one; interesting), and picks up his baton.

Kageyama is transformed.

It’s nothing without the orchestra there; there’s really no way to tell if it will be successful or not without actual musicians to play against and with each other, but for now, Oikawa sits in. He is a musician, too, and knows what it's like to surrender yourself to a conductor. As a conductor, he knows what it takes to ask that. Though not entirely there yet, Oikawa can see how thoroughly Kageyama inhabits the piece. He knows the pace of how he wants it. Oikawa can see in the way he stands, how Kageyama demands the scribbled sections of the orchestra in the mirror to draw out their best for him, can see in the muscle and bunch of his arms how Kageyama tries to pull the orchestra into the mood, a cold exacting king.

“Enough,” Oikawa says, standing to press pause on the player.

“Why?” Kageyama objects. “I learned the whole thing.”

Oikawa circles Kageyama as he talks. “Your gestures are precise, the sweep of your hands are evocative, your posture might even convince me you know what you’re doing.” Oikawa picks up his baton and points it close to Kageyama’s nose. “It’s just such a shame about your face.”

Kageyama’s eyebrows bunch as he glowers. “What.”

Oikawa smiles. “Orchestras mimic what they see in your expressions. Haven’t you watched any conducting videos, Tobio-chan? No matter the piece, _you_ always look like someone’s died.”

They both take a moment to look at Kageyama’s face in the mirror, sullen and dark. Kageyama catches Oikawa’s eyes. His high cheekbones go ruddy with embarrassment. “I’ve been told that before.”

Yes, he would have been, wouldn’t he? Oikawa heard how peer conducting reviews went for Kageyama last semester. Kindaichi and Kunimi would not have held back.

That’s fine. Neither will Oikawa.

“The adagietto is Mahler’s change from desolation to triumph,” Oikawa says. “It is purposeful and reassuring. It is when and how Mahler declares his love.”

Kageyama twitches at the word ‘love.’ He rolls his baton between his fingers. “I know.”

“Knowing and doing something with it are two different things. Love isn’t about knowing something, it’s about showing it. Same with conducting,” Oikawa says. He speaks as he walks with his chair to face Kageyama, continues as he sets the chair down. “You have to show the orchestra the love in the music, and how exactly they should feel when playing to show it.” He steps very close to Kageyama and swipes a finger along the sturdy bone of Kageyama’s jaw. “With your face.”

It’s satisfying in unnameable ways to feel Kageyama swallow under his hand. Oikawa reaches around Kageyama to lift his violin out of the case and the way he can almost smell the warm press of Kageyama’s skin so close to him, sets Oikawa’s teeth together in a sharp smile; he steps back.

“Look at me, Tobio-chan.”

Oikawa rests Kageyama’s violin in his arms as he sits. He holds up an invisible bow to the strings and looks up at Kageyama. “I am your orchestra. Show me how to love you, Kageyama Tobio. Convince me. Start from the beginning.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _Oikawa-san_ —

_We’re almost done with this. I could use a break from being holed up in the practice room all the time. Let’s go into the city._

 

The autumn leaves are turning their warmer colours.

This is what Oikawa notices when they finish their outing on a park bench with ice cream in their hands. Behind them is a concert hall, music filtering through closed doors loud enough to hear outside, filling the silence between him and Kageyama. Oikawa turns and sees the sunset light on Kageyama’s face. Its edges are hard on his skin, but Kageyama seems to be focused on something else as he eats.

 _Probably Mahler_ , Oikawa thinks and faces forward again. For a little while, he lets the music continue to play uninterrupted before speaking up.

“You know, you irritate me a lot, Tobio-chan.”

“Oikawa-san—”

“Be quiet and listen,” he chides before continuing. “When we were younger, we always competed in the same circles. Sometimes I’d win, and a lot of times, I’d lose — and almost all of my losses were to you.”

“I won’t apologise.”

Oikawa smirks. “Of course not. I don’t see you for a while and it’s fine. Then you show up at my school. _And,_ lucky me, you’re assigned to me in order for me to graduate.”

Their eyes meet. Kageyama’s face is open and hopeful in the warm pinks of sunset. The light somehow softens Kageyama’s features, and it makes something stir in Oikawa’s chest. Damn it.

“None of your ensembles liked you and you needed to be in control of everything.” Kageyama stills at that, looks torn between being offended and embarrassed. This expression is easier to deal with. More familiar.

“You were such a brat,” Oikawa continues. “You challenged me constantly, took on Mahler’s fifth and you’ve—”

The next words are harder to say, stuck in Oikawa’s throat, but he feels like he has to try and force them out.

“You’ve changed. That jazz ensemble actually likes you. You’ve stopped looking like your cat died all the time.” Kageyama’s gaze is so intense. He remembers it from seventeen, from fifteen; being watched by someone who was naturally better than him. A few months now have changed a lot. It both irritates and relieves him. Oikawa knows how hard Kageyama works, and the heart he puts into knowing the music the way he does, the way Kageyama takes direction and places his trust in his orchestra, in Oikawa.

He used to think of Kageyama as just a genius. He still is, but now Oikawa thinks he knows him as something else.

How is he supposed to say whatever comes next? _You’ve done so well, Tobio_ , isn’t exactly something he offers easily. Especially to this kouhai. Especially with their history. Especially when even that sentence isn’t all he wants to say. Oikawa gets up to toss his empty cup into the nearby garbage can, turning back to look at Kageyama. Kageyama’s also stood up, but his gaze is staring both at Oikawa and somewhere beyond this park, determined, boundless.

Kageyama takes a deep breath.

“You like me, Oikawa-san.”

Oikawa shifts uncomfortably with this out in the open, with how Kageyama said it, caught halfway between a question and a hope. “You know.”

“Yes,” Kageyama says, and now his tone is warm, confident — the deep, peaceful, sweeping surety of a fathomless hope. “I can see it in your face.”

Kageyama stands in front of him with the poise and grace he has when conducting, the poise and grace Oikawa has taught him over long weeks of intense work. Oikawa sees himself in his posture, and in his face, the open, clear expression he's told Kageyama to have with the Mahler, with the orchestra. Only this time, it isn't to help the string section swell. This time, Oikawa realises, it's just for him.

“Knowing and doing something with it are two different things," Kageyama says. “Love isn’t about knowing something, it’s about showing it. I want to show you.”

Oikawa's nose scrunches up. How just like Tobio to use his own words against him.

Kageyama bows the same way he does at the end of rehearsal, a dismissal, a deference, a thank you. He's said his peace.

“Good night, Oikawa-san. I'll see you tomorrow at the dress rehearsal.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

There are no marked-up mirrors, no empty classrooms, no cherry blossoms. It’s just him, Kageyama, and the stuffy half-shadows of the stage curtains as they watch the orchestra tune. The strings sound particularly restless — Kageyama is going to have his hands full tonight.

“Crooked, Tobio,” Oikawa sing-songs as he jabs lightly at Kageyama's bowtie. It wasn’t, but it is now. He hums as Kageyama works to centre it again, but doesn’t need to look twice to know that the tense line of Kageyama’s brow has smoothed out to a familiar frown. Stupid. Cute. Oikawa wants to do it again.

“It’s not—” Kageyama starts.

“I know.” Oikawa eyes him as he stills Kageyama’s hands against his throat. Kageyama’s steady pulse is thrumming under his fingers; he can feel his breath shift warm in this closed space, and something becomes unsettled in his chest. The look on Kageyama’s face is alight with the promise of the stage. It’s enchanting. The brass are settling into their sound now and the noise is like a living thing vibrating the air around them, and Oikawa can read it all and wants nothing more than to see Kageyama open up again, beating just as loudly.

“Good luck, don’t embarrass me.” Oikawa smiles instead, so sweetly it’s like another jab at Kageyama’s throat. His fingers curl around Kageyama’s shoulder, pulling him close. It’s almost enough just to watch the way Kageyama reflexively close his eyes; but something about how Kageyama looks, so open for him, so hopeful, churns inside his stomach. He’s running hot with pride and grips Kageyama too tightly, and his lips land on the soft skin right under Kageyama’s ear and lingers there; a smirk. “Time to face the music, Tobio-chan.”

“You, too, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama demands quietly. He turns to kiss Oikawa full on the lips then, courage flushed pink across his face, and Oikawa’s mouth is open somewhere between surprise and the heat that tightens around his lungs, the clean scent of Kageyama on his tongue. Oikawa’s back hits the curtain with a soft noise. Ugh. Kageyama is truly horrible.

There’s only a half-step between him and Kageyama, there’s only a half-step from C-sharp minor to D Major, there’s only a half-step to walk out onto the stage; and there is no hesitation as Kageyama takes each one of them.

Oikawa thinks of the spring, of meetings in the practice room, of the open hope and determination in Kageyama’s eyes when they spoke in the park. He remembers, _love isn’t about knowing something, it’s about showing it. I want to show you_.

With the way the stage lights fall on Kageyama’s shoulders as he steps onto the podium, unwavering, Oikawa finds himself finally convinced.

 

 


End file.
